Provides a comprehensive look at the life of the actress and singer through a detailed journey into her fifty years in show business

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

In this satisfying, straight-ahead biography of the star of My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, and The Sound of Music, Robert Windeler walks a fine line between adulation and gossip. While his admiration for the former singing sensation shines through the text, he grapples earnestly with her parents' alcoholism, her extramarital affair, and the long stretches in her career without a Broadway or Hollywood hit. What emerges is a multidimensional portrait of a former British child star who lost her way in early success and found herself--and an interesting new toughness--through some midlife failures, which lead to her 1995 Broadway comeback in Victor/Victoria and her defiance of the Tony Awards. There's much more in Andrews of the scrappy survivor Victoria Grant (of Victor/Victoria) than any magical nanny.

From Library Journal:

In his second biography of Andrews (following Julie Andrews, LJ 3/15/83), Windeler continues to look at a woman about whom surprisingly little has been written. He covers Andrews's career from its start in 1947, when she was 13, right up to her recent refusal of a Tony nomination for Victor/Victoria as well as her private life. Windeler tries to show the "real" Andrews as anything but Mary Poppins, a role that gave her an Academy Award and a firm place as a star but forever typecast her as perky and sweet. No dramatic roles she has tried have sat well with her public. The irony is that, though she's occasionally foul-mouthed, there really aren't any skeletons in her closet. While there are no bombshells in this interesting but dry biography, 1997 marks Andrews's 50th year in show business, and much has happened since 1983. So even if you have the older book, fans will want this one.?Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Bay Area Cooperative Lib. System, Cal.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.